


Photosynthesis

by aintyouafraid



Series: Stucky Bingo 2020 [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, So seriously that I forgot it was crack and it developed a lot of feelings, Steve Rogers doesn't eat because the serum gave him photosynthesis, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25277845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintyouafraid/pseuds/aintyouafraid
Summary: Steve doesn’t realize during the war, and after he gets thawed out, he’s so focused on adapting to the twenty-first century and an actual alien invasion that he doesn’t pay much attention to it.It’s not like Steve never eats. He’ll eat sometimes, just very infrequently. The truth is that he’s usually simply not hungry.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Stucky Bingo 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1831327
Comments: 21
Kudos: 85
Collections: Stucky Bingo 2020





	Photosynthesis

**Author's Note:**

> When one signs up for the Stucky Bingo and has 24 prompts and a ton of ideas, what are they to do? Start with the free space and an idea completely out of left field obviously.
> 
> The discord helpfully pointed out that we never actually see Steve eat post-serum. Conclusion: Steve Rogers does not need to eat, thus this fic was born.
> 
> Title: Photosynthesis  
> Creator(s): aintyouafraid  
> Card number: 014  
> Square filled: C3, free space  
> Link: archiveofourown.org/works/25277845  
> Rating: T  
> Archive warnings: N/A  
> Major tags: Crack Treated Seriously  
> Summary: Steve doesn’t realize during the war, and after he gets thawed out, he’s so focused on adapting to the twenty-first century and an actual alien invasion that he doesn’t pay much attention to it.It’s not like Steve never eats. He’ll eat sometimes, just very infrequently. The truth is that he’s usually simply not hungry.  
> Word count: 4435
> 
> Steve does struggle a little bit with his relationship to food here, but he is still technically getting it from ~the sun~, so just be aware if that might be a trigger for you.

**i.**

Steve doesn’t realize during the war, and after he gets thawed out, he’s so focused on adapting to the twenty-first century and an actual alien invasion that he doesn’t pay much attention to it.

It’s not like Steve _never_ eats. He’ll eat sometimes, just very infrequently. The truth is that he’s usually simply not hungry.

It’s weird because Steve remembers always being hungry before the war. It was the Depression sure, but war rations should not have been able to completely eliminate the raw hunger that ate at him for years, especially since he gave more away than he actually ate. Maybe he should have noticed and asked about it then, but in Steve’s defense, there was a lot going on.

He knows that him not having to eat must be an effect of the serum, but he wonders if it is an effect that Erskine predicted. It seems a little weird to ask for his own file, and he doesn’t want to tip anyone off and have to talk about it. The serum may have done a lot of good for him personally and hopefully for the world through him, but it’s also done a lot of harm to a lot of people for those trying to recreate it. The less he talks about it, hopefully the less people will try to recreate it.

So, Steve doesn’t say anything about it, and he mostly doesn’t eat. He’ll eat with other people when it’s expected because he’s polite, but even then, he’s pretty good at moving things around on his plate to make it look like he ate more than he really does. He feels guilty for wasting the food, and even more ashamed of being relieved sometimes when he gets called away for an emergency mission and he doesn’t have to eat what the Avengers try to give him at all. He knows they’re being helpful, that they mean well, but they all think he needs to eat so much that trying to appease them often results in a nasty stomachache. Steve knows that he could probably trust the Avengers with this secret – at worst Tony and Bruce would be curious with an extra helping of playful ribbing from Tony – but at this point it feels too late to tell them otherwise.

**ii.**

When SHIELD offers a position with their STRIKE Unit based out of DC, Steve takes it. It’s easier, living in DC. Steve only has to deal with Natasha trying to feed him, and she focuses on that way less than she does on getting him a date, which Steve can easily avoid after all the times Bucky tried to set him up. They’re friends, he thinks, or at least she’s the closest thing he has to a friend this century. Once he meets Sam, he’s pretty sure he has two friends and it’s just that Natasha shows her affection a little differently.

If Steve never hears the name of another female agent at SHIELD, it’ll be too soon.

But then Steve has three friends because his best friend isn’t dead after all. And what a fucking trip that is. His best friend, the guy who is in almost every memory Steve has, who Steve was more than a little in love with, is alive. He’s an assassin and a ghost story in more ways than one, but he’s _alive_. Bucky may not know who he is, but he’s still Steve’s friend, the best and longest friend he’s ever had, and Steve will do anything for him.

Sam finds them on the bridge outside of Fury’s shithole safehouse that they’re all hiding in. Steve has his jacket off, shirt sleeves pushed up to give him as much direct sunlight to try to warm some part of him that has turned cold since learning what Bucky might have been through.

“Fueling up, huh? Getting that vitamin D.”

“Can’t hurt.”

Steve sees Sam shift from teasing to serious, a shift that surprises Steve with how natural both sides are to him. These are both versions of Sam, equally valid, equally important. Steve wonders how many versions of himself he has. Steve hopes there’s more than one part left of Bucky.

“He's gonna be there, you know?” Sam finally says.

“I know.”

Sam is still serious, but he’s also sad. Sad for Steve or Bucky or the both of them, Steve doesn’t know, but he appreciates it. “Look, whoever he used to be, the guy he is now, I don't think he's the kind you save. He's the kind you stop.”

“I don't know if I can do that,” Steve confesses.

“Well, he might not give you a choice. He doesn't know you.”

Steve knows that Sam is just trying to help, just trying to prepare him for what’s to come, but Steve feels himself becoming defensive anyway. He can’t snap at Sam, Sam is being rational right now, but Steve doesn’t need the reminder that no one really knows him, not like Bucky used to.

“He will.”

Steve wouldn’t even call it a thought that he goes to get his old suit, because he needs to fight Hydra, but he also needs to fight for Bucky. Steve wasn’t Captain America for long compared to all the history between them, but this is the version of him Bucky would remember.

It’s completely different fighting him now, when Steve knows that the Winter Soldier is Bucky; unconsciously, he’s moving as if he’s sparring with Bucky, because he knew Bucky’s fighting style as well as his own, but as much as Steve’s moves have evolved in the few years out of the ice, Bucky’s have changed in his type held captive. Steve is off, and he can only partly attribute getting shot three times to not adapting to his opponent, because he’s pulling his punches even though Bucky is enhanced almost as much as Steve is. Fighting the Winter Soldier was different than fighting Bucky because once Steve knows that it’s Bucky, _his_ Bucky, fighting him for real is the hardest thing Steve has ever had to do.

Once he’s got the third chip in and made sure everyone else is as safe as Steve can help them be, Steve stops battling. He’s still fighting for Bucky but it’s a different kind of fight – he isn’t hitting back, he isn’t even blocking the blows that Bucky aims for him, but he’s fighting for Bucky to remember, trying to hurl pieces of himself at Bucky until he knows that one sticks. He thinks he’s finally getting through to Bucky when the floor shudders from underneath him. Steve lets himself fall, because he’s already had to live without Bucky once, and he doesn’t think he could do it a second time, knowing that his friend is out there and doesn’t want anything to do with him, knowing that he was forced to do unspeakable things and has to live with them on his own.

But Bucky saves him from the Potomac, and Steve has to believe that Bucky knows something about them, even if he can’t put words to it. Steve has to believe that Bucky still cares for him somewhere below everything Hydra did to him. As soon as he’s out of the hospital, Steve takes off to find him with Sam in tow.

**iii.**

It goes to shit somewhere in Washington, about twenty miles from Seattle. They have to be careful not to get too close before they’re ready or they’ll tip Bucky off and he’ll disappear, but their caution also means that they’re constantly two steps behind. He can feel himself getting irritable in his impatience, snapping at the slightest provocation. After a week of Steve’s temper getting progressively shorter, Sam walks in through the connecting door between their hotel rooms and throws a Snickers at his face. Steve catches it and stares down at it for a few seconds and then back up at Sam questioningly. “You’re not you when you’re hungry man. I know you want to find him, but I haven’t seen you eat in three days.”

Sam has an entire bag of takeout with him, and the thought of eating automatically carries a low level of panic, but Steve realizes he’s actually hungry. He kind of forgot what that felt like, but it explains why he has a short fuse now when they’ve been chasing after Bucky for months. It’s frustrating, because Steve just wants to find Bucky and bring him home, but he resigned himself to the fact that Bucky isn’t ready for that yet around week two of their odd, cross-country road trip. Nothing has really changed about trying to find and convince Bucky to come home with him – Steve has been chasing Bucky for most of his life, it’s more of an instinct than anything else, always in the back of his mind. What he hasn’t had to think about since 1943, what’s instinct to probably every other human being alive, is hunger. Steve is lashing out because he’s hungry.

He eats and actually enjoys it.

Steve doesn’t figure it out why he was hungry for the first time in five years until they leave Washington, and even then, it’s probably more Sam figuring it out than Steve. They’re following clues that Bucky is doubling back and heading south towards Dallas. Steve thinks he’s probably just moving according to when memories resurface, otherwise Steve doesn’t see a pattern to the way he’s going from DC to Illinois to Virginia to New Mexico to Washington to Texas. As he and Sam move south, Steve’s snacking tapers off until he’s hardly eating anything at all. He’s not surprised that after his appetite in Washington, Sam notices. After the fifth time Sam gives him a concerned look for refusing trail mix, Steve figures he had a good run, not telling anyone about not having to eat for going on five years.

Sam is driving, which may not be the best time to have this conversation, but if Steve puts it off, it’s only going to get worse until Sam brings it up, and Steve’s default setting is defensive. “I don’t really have to eat, Sam.”

To his credit, Sam takes it in stride. “Okay, tell me about that. Because I just saw you eat a ton of diner food about five days ago and you were a lot less pissy afterward. And stop balling yourself up, you’ve already got to squeeze that giant body into this car, there’s no reason to make yourself more uncomfortable by trying to become one with the door.”

Steve thinks about protesting, but Sam probably wouldn’t buy it. Steve is obviously nervous to be having this conversation, it’s one he’s been avoiding for years. So he tries to explain as best he can, which is admittedly not well at all. “Yeah, I was hungry then, but usually I’m not. I haven’t felt hungry like that since 1943.”

“1943.” Sam takes a hand off the wheel to rub tiredly over his face. “You’re saying the serum made you not need to eat anymore? Your metabolism is four times faster than the average person. You should be eating a ton.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? I make myself eat sometimes, but it usually gives me a stomachache, like I’ve eaten too much even when it’s hardly anything at all.”

“What, do you live off of water, sunlight, and righteous indignation?” Sam jokes.

“Actually, I think you might be right. Not about the righteous indignation part, but I was hungry in Seattle, and it rained the entire time. If I get food from the sun like plants, then it’d make sense that I got hungry because I wasn’t getting enough sun, right?”

“Well, if there’s a serum out there that cured all your shit and made you super strong and obnoxiously fast, I guess it’s no surprise that it also allows you to photosynthesize. Seems efficient.”

**iv.**

There’s not really a way to test their theory, but Steve does think he feels better on the days where the sun is shining, though that may just be because he thinks he will – the placebo effect, or something like it. Sam takes to pestering him to get more sunlight rather than trying to get him to eat.

They catch up with Bucky in Abilene. Or rather, Bucky decides to show himself in Abilene. He’s surprised when he walks in from the balcony to find someone sprawled out on one of the beds since Sam is out visiting with friends stationed at the nearby Air Force base, though he should have known that Bucky would prefer to deal with them one at a time.

Bucky waves lazily at him. Steve is sure Bucky has at least seven escape routes planned in case this situation doesn’t go according to his plan.

“Hey, Buck.”

“You know I killed a president in Dallas?”

“It might have been mentioned in the files somewhere that the Winter Soldier was responsible for the assassination of JFK, but Bucky, that wasn’t you.”

“I know there were extenuating circumstances and all, but it was still me who did it.”

“You didn’t have a choice.”

Bucky sighs. “I didn’t actually come here to talk about this. Just wanted to make sure you knew who you were following around the country. I’m not the same guy, you know.”

“Yeah, well neither am I.”

“It’s still hard to remember you like this. Most things that come back about the war are vague impressions, feelings, mostly fear. But if I pull at any of those threads of worry, they lead back to you, ninety pounds soaking wet. Looking at you now, I can’t believe you were ever so small, but that’s what’s familiar.”

Steve laughs, and it sounds just as sad as it does happy. “The first time you saw me after the serum, I was storming a Hydra base in Austria looking for you. I told you that I thought you were dead, and the first thing you said was ‘I thought you were smaller.’” There’s several beats of silence, and Steve realizes that talking about the first place Bucky was tortured and experimented on may be the worst idea he’s ever had. “Sorry.”

Bucky shrugs, which seems like the movement of a guy from Brooklyn much more than a famed assassin, and says, “It’s alright. The war seems like better memories than what came after.”

“Bucky…”

Bucky fluidly slips off the bed and to his feet, all silent grace that Steve saw glimpses of during the war honed by years of training. Steve steps forward without thinking, hands held out in front of him to try to make him seem like less of a threat even though he knows Bucky understands he’s enough of a threat on his own. He’s afraid that Bucky is going to leave, and Steve doesn’t know what he’ll do then because there’s no doubt in his mind that if Bucky doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.

“No, Steve.” Bucky’s standing straight and firm, with a commanding tone to match, and staring Steve down from just out of arm’s reach. “We’re not doing the pity thing.”

He looks away then and runs a hand through his long hair. It seems like a nervous move, like he’s trying to shield himself from the world with just the hair on his head. It’s not something Bucky would have done before, and it’s not something of the soldier – it’s something completely new. But despite his obvious anxiety, Bucky doesn’t waver when he says, “Everyone else in the world, if they knew about me, they’d either hate me or pity me, and I can’t take that from you. I can’t take you blaming yourself either.”

“I should have looked for you.”

Bucky sighs and looks at him like he’s particularly thick. It reminds him of before – of Brooklyn and street fights and Bucky always watching his six even when he thought Steve was being a dumbass. It reminds him of Bucky patching him up and lecturing him about being reckless and taking on the world’s problems when he had to sort out his own first. It reminds him, suddenly and viscerally, of six and sixteen and twenty-six and _home_.

“Shit happened, but it wasn’t your fault. It was the right call not to look for me. Any normal person falling from that train wouldn’t have survived. Neither of us knew that I was one of the people who was no longer normal. If this is going to work, I have to know that you aren’t carrying that around with you, Steve. You had to save the world, and that meant you couldn’t save me.”

“I could have found a way to do both.”

“Man, you’ve always been a stubborn son of a bitch, haven’t you? You may be good at planning a battle, but you’ve never been good at looking at the whole war. I couldn’t have lived with myself if you coming to look for me gave Hydra enough time to blow up New York. Hell, to blow up the world. You did the right thing not coming after me, Steve, for me and everyone else. If you can understand that, really get it through your thick skull, then we can go from there. I have enough guilt for the two of us, I can’t be worrying about yours.”

“Nothing that happened – what they made you do – that wasn’t your fault, Buck.”

“No, but I still did it. I have to find a way to live with the fact that I killed a lot of people whether I wanted to or not, whether they deserved it or not, and knowing that I was manipulated into doing it doesn’t erase the memories. And if you really think that I have nothing to be sorry for, then you can’t think you have anything to be sorry for either, at least when it comes to me.”

“Okay. It might take me a while, but I’ll try.”

Bucky snorts. “There’s never been any try with you, pal. If you’re trying, it’s as good as done already. Now, enough about our past, I’ve seen the museum exhibit, catch me up on all the stupid shit you’ve done without me, so I call yell about it all at once and get it out of the way. I already know about you crashing a plane into the arctic, so you can skip to everything after 2011.”

Steve smiles. He doesn’t try to move forward, as much as he wants to be closer to Bucky again, in each other’s space like they’ve been their whole lives up to that point. He’s okay with waiting, if it’s what Bucky needs.

“Apparently, they were going to break the future thing to me slowly, but they played the Dodgers game from 1941 we went to way up in the nosebleeds and ate all those boiled peanuts even though the shells were a bitch to get off and left our hands smelling like peanuts for three days and – oh, by the way, I don’t actually have to eat anymore.”

“You don’t _what_?”

**v.**

They decide to go back to New York. They want to go back to Brooklyn because it’s always been home for the both of them even if the city has changed and they have changed, but it is fucking expensive. Tony offers free rent in a garishly lavish tower as a means of showing affection and said tower is only a thirty-minute train ride to Brooklyn, and they’re not so proud that they’d turn the opportunity down.

It is a little complicated when Steve says he wants to take him up on the room (“Floor!” Tony cheerfully interjects, _Jesus_ ) and has to explain that he’s bringing Bucky, which prompts a long discussion on how exactly another World War II veteran is walking around in his early thirties as well as the rather significant detail that he was a prisoner of war for nearly seventy years and may have been responsible for the death of Tony’s parents.

Steve shares a lot of the story over the phone during their admittedly awkward road trip from Abilene to DC – Bucky does not want to talk, which Sam respects, but the hush that ends up falling over the car is not very comfortable, to say the least – but he is smart enough to wait to do the last part in person.

Bucky agrees to stay in DC with Sam while Steve takes his bike to New York for a day. He snipes about not needing a babysitter, but he’s just as reluctant to let Steve out of his sight now that they’re back together. Steve tries not to read too much into it.

Tony handles it about as well as can be expected, which is that he throws several objects that Steve doesn’t recognize at the wall and screams a lot, but ultimately lets Steve call Pepper to comfort him and doesn't try to kill him when Steve says he’ll call in a few days and hightails it back to DC.

He finds Bucky on Sam’s deck, stretched out on a chaise lounge. He’s wearing lime green shorts and no shirt, though he has a towel draped over his metal arm. He’s also wearing the stupidest sunglasses Steve has ever seen. They’re reflective. He’s still unfairly attractive.

“People are much looser about wearing shirts now, did you know that?” Bucky doesn’t move to get up, just tilts his head and smiles teasingly at Steve. “Might make your whole sunbathing thing more efficient.”

“What’s your excuse? Not just for the toplessness, but the whole outfit.”

Bucky smirks. “You don’t think green is my color? Or is it the Ray Bans?”

“I assume you mean the sunglasses, which should be banned from your face. Everyone’s face, really.”

“I like ‘em actually. Sam won’t let me take them, he says they’re expensive, but I might have to buy some of my own. Or steal them. Not like I’ve got a job.”

“You always did have quick hands.”

Bucky laughs and tilts his face back up towards the sun. “What would people say that Captain America’s best friend is a common thief?”

“Well, considering as much thieving as I did and how you stealing enough food is the only way I got through several winters, I think you’d be forgiven.”

“Would’ve been real nice if you could photosynthesize or whatever during the Depression, huh?”

“Yeah. You still didn’t say what you were doing.”

“I thought it’d be obvious, Steve. I got some version of the serum too, I want to know if I can do it. I think I can a little bit. Not as much as you, I don’t think, I don’t get sick eating food when I’ve got enough sunlight like you do. Come sit.” Bucky gestures to the chaise like it’s big enough for them both and laughs. “Eat!”

“Ha ha, I’ve never heard that one before.”

“Sam’s a funny guy. Come on, we can fit. We’ve managed smaller spaces before.”

Steve wedges in beside him, and it’s only when they’re touching from shoulder to thigh, faces tipped back toward the sun, that Steve has the courage to say, “What’re we doing, Bucky?”

“Whatever we want, pal.”

Bucky is warm and bright in the sunlight. Steve kisses him.

**vi.**

It takes a while for Tony to come around, but Steve and Bucky do move into Avengers Tower eventually. Steve even tells Tony about the whole photosynthesis thing, and he makes sure that not only do they have floor to ceiling windows in their apartment, but a large outdoor patio as well. Whenever it’s not raining, that’s where he and Bucky spend most of their time.

When Steve returns from his morning run, Bucky is already out on the deck reading _A Feast for Crows_ because he’s always loved books more than pictures, and he wants to read each book before the new season of Game of Thrones so he can rant to Steve about what they’ve done wrong. Steve doesn’t much care as long as it’s a good story, but it’s nice to see Bucky so animated about something.

Steve takes a quick shower and fixes Bucky French toast to surprise him. Bucky usually only eats once a day now that they spend ample time out in the sunlight, and he likes it to be sweet.

Steve brings a plate out onto the deck covered in strawberries and syrup and Bucky smiles at him, setting his book to the side. He's telling Steve bits and pieces that he doesn't think gives too much away, though Steve may get distracted by the way Bucky’s mouth turns redder and redder with each strawberry, and the way he licks his lips to get rid of smudges of syrup. Steve is only being helpful when some drips from his fork onto his chest and Steve licks it up. He doesn't want his hands to get sticky after all. But then he's right there and Steve might as well play with his nipples while he's at it.

The remaining syrup from Bucky’s breakfast is used a bit more creatively.

At least they’re done with the active portion of the morning and to the lazy cuddling part – Bucky draped on top of him with his head resting on Steve’s chest because he likes to hear Steve’s easy breathing and steady heartbeat – when Tony bursts onto the deck, suddenly halts, dramatically flings a hand in front of his eyes, and yells, “I did not need to see that! You’re in public!”

“We’re ninety floors up and strategically hidden by rooftop hedges on our own deck, Stark, we didn’t expect an audience,” Bucky grumbles.

“Fair point. JARVIS, why didn’t you warn me?”

“I did suggest you knock, sir.”

“You said they were sunbathing! I thought they were laying in the sun talking about their shows or combat strategies or whatever and photosynthesizing. I thought they were eating not getting post-coital!”

Bucky hums and says, “Trust me, Tony, Steve and I got plenty to eat. In more ways than one.”

Tony backs away, muttering incoherently, and shouts to them that the Avengers are meeting in thirty. Steve thinks he hears him say, “Which is hopefully enough time to invent something to erase the Winter Soldier’s ass from my memory, Jesus.” He definitely feels Bucky’s smirk tucked against his collarbone.

Steve smiles and kisses the top of Bucky’s head. They have another twenty minutes before they really have to get ready after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Did I write this entire fic because I just wanted to set up Steve and Bucky lounging around naked sunbathing in the name of photosynthesis? Yes.
> 
> Will Steve eat in any of my future bingo prompts? Probably not because we never see Steve eat and I got irrationally attached to the idea of the serum enhancing Steve to the point where he doesn't need food.
> 
> Unbeta'd so any mistakes are my own. I'd love any feedback or to discuss theories of Steve Rogers metabolism.


End file.
